Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow
by Luna Lovegood5
Summary: A rather long oneshot split up into shorter sections. Title says it all. The odds stack up against the Doctor and Rose as they fight for their lives. My version of 'Army of Ghosts' and 'Doomsday'.
1. What Love Can Do

**Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow**

**Part One: What Love Can Do, That Dares Love Attempt**

A/N: The title of this – and the title of each subsequent part – is taken from Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_. Mostly because I thought it would be cute, but also largely because David Tennant is on the front cover of my copy being a particularly dashing Romeo.

This is actually just a one-shot but something like 5000 words long, so I've split it up into five sections. This is the first and it deals with events leading up to Rose's death. I obviously don't think this will _actually _happen - but what's wrong with a bit of artistic license?

Disclaimer: I don't own DW, _or_ R&J. 'Nuff said.

--

"What the _hell_…?" Yvonne breathed, dropping her gun slightly in surprise as her heavily-mascared eyes widened. Originating from somewhere near Rose's feet, light green gas began to fill the room, distorting their vision and giving everything a slightly hazy edge.

They had been in this room for three hours now – the Doctor, Rose and Yvonne Hartman, the director of Torchwood – chased into the bowels of Torchwood tower by armies of Cybermen and promptly locked inside. The Doctor had been trying to think their way out of there for the vast majority of that time, the footsteps of the Cybermen clanging and pounding audibly ever closer. Several came to a halt right above them and all seemed to stamp a foot; the ceiling shuddered with an almighty bang and some dust floated down as their emotionless, electric voices could be heard buzzing overhead. If they came downstairs and stopped threateningly outside their tiny cell, like a promise never quite delivered, it wouldn't be the first time that hour. However, despite several glances upwards, the occupants of the room had their eyes fixed much more firmly on the waves of green flooding around them.

"Doctor? What is it?" A note of urgency rang through Rose's voice as she turned up her nose and stepped nervously away from the previously unnoticed tiny holes in the floor through which the gas was being emitted.

He held a finger up to silence her for a moment, but she didn't pay much heed.

"I've smelt this before…I recognise it!" Rose exclaimed, gesturing emptily with her hands. "I was with you…" The Doctor merely frowned, trying to place it too. "Reminds me of…of Cardiff! and – " but suddenly everything became a little _too _hazy; the room lurched sideways and Rose went with it, only stopped from a painful collision with the floor by the Doctor's arm as he'd rushed forwards to break her fall.

Gripping her arms a little harder than was probably necessary, he asked, "Are you OK?"

She coughed. "Um…yeah…I think so…just a bit out of it." Trying to make light of it, she smiled through her cough.

"Stay off the booze," Yvonne advised bitterly, and they ignored her.

"I don't like this…" the Doctor muttered darkly, pulling Rose to the other side of the room and indicating that Yvonne should follow them, away from the source of the smoky green tendrils that seemed intent on wrapping themselves around every living thing in the room. "What were you saying about Cardiff?"

"I dunno. I jus'…the smell, it jus' made me think of Cardiff. I've never even been, 'cept for with – with the old you."

Noting the way Rose suddenly had to blink to keep her eyes from rolling back into her head and the way that even Yvonne was now struggling to stand, the Doctor realised with a horrified jolt exactly what the gas was.

He groaned, putting a hand to his forehead and rubbing his temples. "_Chloroform_!"

"English, please," Rose muttered, knees buckling under her. He pulled her to the ground and she seemed to settle a little. Most of the gas rose steadily upwards, a few tendrils going smokily awry, against the pack, and tangling themselves about Rose's feet.

"Chloroform. Usually found in liquid form, tons of old black-and-white movie criminals used it to knock the good guys out for the count. You were right when you said Cardiff. Sneed. It was on his handkerchief when he knocked you out…that's what a small dose will do. Any bigger and it can be lethal."

The girl beside him took a deep breath then looked immediately like she regretted doing so. To his left, Yvonne sank to the floor but inclined her head to show that she was fine.

"So…we're stuck in here with a gas that knocks us out if it's kind and kills us if it's not, Cybermen marchin' overhead and no way out?" _Cause of death: nasty green gas or deletion at the hands of clanging robots. What a choice!_

He nodded silently.

"Hmm, well, not exactly ten out of ten for originality, is it?"

Somewhat astounded and pleased by her flippant attitude (and also wondering if she quite comprehended the danger of the situation), he laughed. "If we get out of here alive, remind me to tell you to never change."

A blush crept over her cheeks but she fought it down, thinking there were more important things to be said, to be asked, and making a conscious effort to close her mouth. "_If_ we get out?"

Sometimes he wishes he'd never let her feel safe with him. No-one was ever safe with him. She should know that by now. "You know it's never certain."

"You'll manage something. You always do." The confidence in her, the complete trust she radiated, made him feel worse than ever.

He couldn't quite summon up the energy or the desire to tell her that so many had died while with him, how so many had died at his hands. A brief "Not always", voice hollow and resigned, was all he managed.

"We've always got out." Yvonne simply watched as Rose reasoned, clearly wondering exactly what other scrapes they'd been in.

"We've just been lucky. I don't always manage it. Regeneration? Done it nine times, and lost a fair amount of people along the way."

Accustomed as she was to aliens and the paranormal, the Torchwood Institute leader's eyes almost popped out of her head at that. The 20-year-old shop girl from London, though, took it all in her stride, despite not knowing quite what to say.

"Oh."

"Oh is right."

"But you'll be OK?" she asked in a small voice and he turned to look at her, his brown eyes boring into hers. "Whatever happens to me, you'll be OK?"

Reply came in the form of a very resigned smile and she wasn't sure whether to take that as a yes or not. Her eyes watered, perhaps in fear, perhaps as a reaction to the gas. She didn't know anymore. It took more thought power than she currently had to work it out.

"We could…we could just sit on the holes?" Rose suggested helpfully, face lighting up with optimism.

"Nah. Whole room'd explode, taking someone's backside with it. No offence Rose, but I'm rather attached to mine."

Looking as though she didn't quite know whether to laugh or cry, Rose settled for sighing and leaned her head back against the cold stone wall, as far away from the gas as possible.

"_You _– " Yvonne rounded on the Doctor suddenly, pointing a perfectly manicured, accusative finger at him. "Why isn't this affecting _you_? I haven't seen you cough or wheeze or – or anything!"

"Different biology," he sighed. "Binary vascular system. Two sets of veins and arteries for the gas to work its way around…means I have twice as long."

Yvonne's lip curled, showing clearly that she didn't quite know whether to be disgusted or envious. Rose, meanwhile, looked to him anxiously, realising what this meant. If they died in that room, he would not only have to watch it without even beginning to feel the effects of the gas himself, but he would have to spend a significant amount of time locked up with two corpses.

A mutter came from Yvonne. "There's got to be a way out…"

All out of ideas and rather exasperated, Rose snorted to cover her panic. "Don't ya think we would've found it by now? It's not as simple as walking up to the big green neon exit sign." Only the pitch of her voice, slightly higher than normal and wracked with coughs, gave away her distress.

While Yvonne rolled her eyes, the Doctor reached for Rose's hand and smiled encouragingly. "More's the pity." Slipping her hand into his, her lips curved upwards slightly in response and she held back another cough.

Smatterings of dust floated down from the ceiling as the Cybermen proceeded to march, closer and closer, thud, thud, thud…

"So what do we do?" Yvonne shouted, slightly hysterical, eyes bulging. "We just sit in here and wait to see what kills us first?"

Rose looked to the Doctor, pleading in her eyes. "I know you can work something out," she whispered.

"You have far too much faith in me."

"Will you two _please _focus on the issue at hand, that being the fact that we are about to suffocate to death and/or be trampled on by giant metal men?"

Rose shook her head, coughing violently as Yvonne placed a hand over her mouth and sank further to the ground. "Not if I can help it," Rose protested as strongly as could be expected when faced with imminent asphyxiation.

"Oh? And what exactly are you going to do, blondie? _Cough _your way out of here?" Yvonne spat scathingly.

"That gas in getting in from somewhere," she pointed out practically. "Maybe we can get out the same way."

Rolling her eyes impatiently, Yvonne retorted, "It's coming in through tiny holes in the floor."

"_So_?"

The Doctor had to give it to Rose; she gave as good as she got. That glare would have been enough to send a Cyberman reeling.

"We -are - not- woodworm." Every syllable was pronounced slowly, with a large pause between each as though she was talking to a small child.

"Well I don't know! At least I'm tryin' to help!"

"Some help _you _are! All you can do is sit there looking pretty!" Yvonne shot back, hoisting her gun higher.

Rose opened her mouth to reply but the Doctor brought his hand crashing down on the floor and she closed it abruptly. "_That_," he said warningly, looking to each of them, "is not helping." How was it fair that he saved the universe on a weekly basis and yet still always ended up with squabbling females for company?

But Rose's eyes had shifted to the gun. "Let's shoot our way out."


	2. Civil Blood Makes Civil Hands Unclean

**Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow –**

**Part Two: Civil Blood Makes Civil Hands Unclean**

A/N: Part two! Massive thanks to ShrinkingVioletGirl and Uh.yeah for your lovely reviews to part one! This is a continuation of that chapter, with more and more odds fighting against the Doctor and Rose as they fight for their lives. Still don't own anything!

--

Completely shocked at the revelation that she was apparently about to die in the presence of a _mad _woman, Yvonne didn't quite manage to perfect a glare and ended up grimacing at the blonde. "The walls are reinforced! It'd be a waste of bullets!" Even though she wasn't quite sure how bullets would help her against metal men, she knew she definitely wanted to be armed to face whatever was out there.

"Not to mention anything we shoot would probably ricochet back off the wall and straight into our brains," the Doctor added dryly.

Becoming slightly annoyed that it only seemed to be her who was bothering to come up with anything, silly as her suggestions apparently were, Rose sighed exasperatedly. "Got a better idea? 'Cause I'd _love_ to hear it."

Silence.

"Right then. How about shooting at the holes? They have to be the weak point of the room, right?"

A look of dawning realisation crossed the Doctor's face, mingling with stunned hope as his grip on her hand tightened. Then his face fell and his hold became weak again. "Even if we get out, we have no way of defeating the Cybermen, Rose." He sounded tired, resigned, but there was no way Rose was giving up. The Doctor might have accepted that he was going to die here but she certainly wouldn't. There was still a chance open for her and, as she was 900 years younger than him and not nearly so weary of life, she was going to fight for it, even if it was the last thing she did.

"Then I'd rather die from a bullet on the rebound than become one of those robots."

He stared at her, admiration and incredulity mixing across his features, before springing into action and firing out instructions. Apparently, the gas was not yet affecting him at all.

"_Brilliant…_it'd at least give us some more natural air." He eyed Rose, who was twenty shades of pale – she was certainly in need of it. Even Yvonne was beginning to look decidedly short of breath. "And they _need _us…they'll just take us to another prison, hopefully one that isn't a gas chamber…" he frowned slightly as he weighed up the odds, speech faltering for a moment as he looked around curiously, calculating, pacing, until: "You two – get in that corner - that one there - and stay put. Do not move an inch. Don't mind if I use your gun, do you? No, didn't think so." With that, he snatched it out of Yvonne's surprised grip.

"What're you going to do?" Yvonne asked suspiciously.

Tapping his foot impatiently, the Doctor replied. "Exactly what she suggested." Rose couldn't help but smile as he flashed a boyish grin in her direction. Sometimes it really helped that he was quite as insane as she was.

"Are you _mad_? You'll kill us all!" Her shrieks echoed around the room. Apparently, the calm and collected director of the alien institute wasn't quite so calm and collected under duress.

"You want to suffocate to death in here, that's up to you. But I won't and I won't let her either. Now _get in the corner_!"

Yvonne flinched but stood her ground. "What if I don't?" As big as her building grudge against Yvonne Hartman was, Rose couldn't help but admire her for that. It took a lot to stand up to the Doctor.

"Then you die," he said simply, for it really was as simple as that, and Yvonne blanched. "If I fire this at this angle and it bounces off the wall, there is a possibility that it will bounce back to almost any point except that corner."

"How on Earth do you know that?"

Jiggling his head a little, he tapped somewhere near his brain.

Rose, suddenly doubting her plan and decidedly nervous, piped up from the designated corner. "What about you?"

"It could hit me." A light shrug. "But it'd probably only get my leg. I'm less attached to my leg than my backside. I have got two of them, after all."

"_Only _your leg!" Perhaps she'd been wrong when she thought it was handy he was so insane.

"This is our last chance," he said, quietly, finally. She knew the matter was closed and she leant back against the wall, shutting her eyes in resignation as she struggled to draw breath.

"Three…two…one…"

The gunshot echoed like a crack throughout the room and was followed by a short silence in which Rose did not dare to open her eyes. Then, something creaked ominously and dust began to fall again as the Cybermen marched ever closer, more hurriedly this time, as though they had heard the small explosion.

_Thud thud thud._

Something massive crashed down beside Yvonne, pushing her further into the corner and making Rose scream as the entire room shook. Feeling the blast of air, gas and rubble across her face, she knew she couldn't open her eyes now even if she wanted to and she called out blindly for the Doctor, choking on crumbling dust as she did so.

"Stay back!" he yelled, sounding very small and vulnerable amongst all the crashing debris. The room continued to shake and another gunshot exploded around it, this time causing most of the wall to crash in. So much was falling around her that she began to feel like she was falling too, no longer knowing if she was hitting the debris or if it was hitting her, until –

Suddenly, a hand reached out through the darkness and the dust, pulling her to her feet. "Run!"

Closing her fingers tightly around his, she would have laughed in relief if she wasn't too terrified to open her mouth. Not only was the air full of gas, but it had somehow ignited; she was breathing in hot ash and her lungs screamed in protest. A burning heat seared up her leg just as her hand was tugged on sharply and she stumbled a few steps forward, cooler, cleaner air beginning to wash over her.

--

After snapping her eyes open, she needed to blink a few times before she realised she probably would have been better keeping them closed. Everything was covered in a coat of ash hanging threateningly in the air; the room looked like it had been hit with industrial revolution-style smog. Yellow, burning air began to billow from the room and into the corridor beyond, carrying the fire with it. Soon, none of Torchwood tower would be safe…they would have nowhere to hide.

Her hand was dropped as the Doctor raised both his hands to Yvonne's gun and stood in the doorway, blinking through the ash and looking swiftly from side to side for any sign of the approaching Cybermen. "Rose, get _out_!"

A small gasp left her as she realised they wouldn't be running for their lives together; he intended to stay behind and fight the Cybermen alone. "I'm not leaving you!" And, unspoken, almost visible on her trembling lips, _you're worth dying for._

"You have to. My biology's different; I can cope with the gas for longer but for you can't. For God's sake get out!" Desperation rang loud and clear through his voice as he leant back into the room to pull a shaking Yvonne to her feet. "You too, run!"

"What happened to fighting? Together?" It felt as though someone was holding a cloth to her mouth and slowly pushing it down her throat. Her brain cried out for oxygen but _Doctor _was the one coherent thought in her mind.

"I'm sorry. I've lost too many people today, Rose." Images of several Torchwood workers, lying dead at the feet of the Cybermen, flashed through both of their minds. "I can't lose you as well. Do you understand that? I _can't _and I won't. I don't need you to die for me. If you go now we can both get out alive. You know that if I could have you with me safely I wouldn't hesitate for a second." The utter certainly in his voice calmed her for a moment.

"But what about you?"

"I told you, I'll be fine, now _run_!"

"Doctor…"

"If anything happens to you…" Unvoiced fears hung like a threat in the air. He took her hand and squeezed it briefly before dropping it again and turning back to the door. "Yvonne, get her out of here."

And before she could say anymore, an iron grip took over her wrist and steered her straight out of the room, forcing her to break into a run. Looking back over her shoulder, all she could see was burning ash. Smoke soon swallowed the voice and shape of the Doctor.

--

Yvonne's grip on her wrist tightened and Rose felt her veins pulse in protest as great billows of hot ash, smoke and chloroform chased them through the long corridors. "Watch it!" she snapped with as much energy as she could muster. "I would like to keep my hand for when we get out!"

The director turned to her with a new, steely glint in her eyes, now nothing like the wide, terrified orbs they had been back in the gas room. "You won't be needing it."

"Y'what? W-what are you on about?" Rose panicked, allowing herself to be led in her shock, beginning to wonder whether the gas had made Yvonne crazy or if the Doctor had just pulled her out of the frying pan and pushed her into the fire.

Yvonne continued on, running, in Rose's opinion, completely away from the exit, although it was hard to tell with the gas still obscuring everything. A sharp pain shot through her lungs as she spoke and it felt as though she couldn't quite breathe in deep enough. "Where are we _going_? Get _off _me!" Never one to give in without a fight, Rose kicked out sharply and pulled roughly backwards as Yvonne gasped and her grip slackened. However, before she'd even retraced two steps, her arm was yanked almost out of its socket and she stumbled reluctantly forwards again, screaming. "Let go! Let me _go_! Have ya gone completely mad? We're gonna run straight into the Cybermen!"

The only answer she got was to have a gun thrust roughly in her face. "Any more of your stupid questions or comments and you can say goodbye to that pretty little head."

Escape plan after escape plan dashed through Rose's mind, all tumbling over each other and making less and less sense as the entire air space was filled with the gas. Before she could even begin to act on any of them, though, the other woman had glanced behind her and Rose felt a sudden pressure on her back and her own head come into sharp contact with a wall without even her brain even having time to register she'd been falling. The cold steel behind her, although certainly painful, was quite a steadying influence and Rose grasped at it desperately, unable to metaphorically hold onto that feeling and needing physical reassurance. Nails screeched against metal.

Trying to breathe to steady herself, her ears rang with Yvonne's laughter and she found she couldn't draw breath at all. All the oxygen in the air had been replaced by chloroform and smoke. Though her vision was now nothing but a fast-moving, green blur, she still knew exactly what she was being hit with when Yvonne's gun found its way to her head. Down, down, down she slipped, further and further into blackness, thoughts swimming dizzily, eyes rolling back…her head lolled to one side and she dropped horizontally to the floor, unconscious.


	3. Stay But A Little I Will Come Again

**Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow** –

** Part Three: Stay But A Little; I Will Come Again**

A/N: Thanks so much for the wonderful reviews! I'm intending on updating every day so that this can be finished before _Army of Ghosts_ airs. Still own nothing, and this is part three of five.

--

The Doctor dashed about from section to section of the TARDIS medical room, concentrating fully on the vials of chemicals before him and not even daring to blink. Chemical after chemical went into vial after vial, Gallifreyan symbols whirring uselessly across the blue screen a metre away telling him nothing could be done. Distilling the liquid, separating the various chemicals off, throwing it frustratedly at the walls…none of it helped. Even the TARDIS couldn't identify the concoction of poisons.

At first he'd thought it was smoke inhalation, trauma from excessive amounts of chloroform. That was all, he told himself, convinced that he'd be able to save her and in no time they'd be off again, lying on applegrass together and kissing in the corridors of New Earth hospitals. But he'd swiftly realised the full extent of the damage; swiftly been hit by the enormity of the situation and it left him reeling similarly to a man just hit by a truck.

He crashed a vial full of purple liquid to the surface rather too harshly; it smashed and scattered, glass flying everywhere and sparks forming as a few drops of the purple mixed with a violent orange and began to fizz. The symbols on the screen stopped moving and came to a halt, statue-still almost like a death sentence. '_No_', they seemed to cry, '_give up. There's nothing you can do_.' And, like a whispered hint, tiny little pictures floated across the bottom of the screen, twirling and fitting into one another to form a single meaning: '_Go to her_.'

"_Damn _it!" he exclaimed violently, his elbows crashing to the desk and his head falling into his hands. Frenzied fingers ripped at his hair and scalp as vials fell steadily to the floor, crashing, hissing and spilling through the holes in the floor.

Maybe it was a reaction to the noise. Whatever caused it, the sharp intake of breath, like a gasp of life ripped from the lungs of a suffocating man, from behind him made the Doctor spin round at top speed, kicking broken shards of glass away impatiently as he rushed towards the large, white bed in the centre of the room.

--

As the noise of breaking glass echoed through the TARDIS, Rose Tyler's eyes snapped open. Although she was completely oblivious as to what had woken her up, she noted that the air entering her lungs felt decidedly cleaner, even if it did feel as though someone was stabbing her between the ribs everytime her chest cavity expanded.

She heard someone breathe out heavily to her left and turned her head to the noise just as an explosion of brown hair swam into view.

Unable to help grinning even through the throbbing pain in her head, she looked up at him with wide eyes. "Doctor!" It was only now that she registered where she was: the medical section of the TARDIS, a place she'd only ever been in once before. Expansive white walls practically drowned and smothered the two tiny figures that were her and the Doctor. Under what felt like three sheets, her nails scraped at what had, moments before to her mind at least, been cold steel. All she found was soft mattress and she allowed her fingers to sink into it as she basked in relief.

"Hello Rose," he said quietly, the smile curving his lips avoiding his eyes like the plague.

"Got us both out then?" she said, smiling. "Knew you would." She reached out to take his hand and he actually almost flinched. A frown crossed her forehead and she hastily retracted her arm, placing it back under the covers. "What's up?"

He was still silent.

"C'mon…you worked your magic on me, I'll be fine! It was just a bit of gas. Don't look like that…"

She was about to speak again when a coughing spasm overwhelmed her, ripping through her throat and making her whole body sear with pain. Pressing her head into the pillow she'd only just realised was under her head and curling her shoulders upwards, she tried to ignore the tearing feeling in her stomach. A hand pressed lightly on her back and she found herself sitting up before spitting blood everywhere.

"Oh my God…" she stared down at the cover and her own hands, holding them up to her face in horror as she realised they were covered in her own blood. "What – Doctor!"

Even if he'd known what to say, he couldn't have spoken. He pressed his back teeth together and looked down.

"That – that's not good, is it? Doctor?"

Still he couldn't answer. Instead, he methodically got up to fetch a cloth and began to wipe the blood from her shaking hands. Usually he had an explanation for everything. Rose stared, nonplussed and worried, as he methodically moved up and down each of her fingers.

"Doctor!" she pressed urgently while he replaced one of the covers on her bed. "Please, I'm scared!"

He met her eyes and she saw, to her horror, that he was just as terrified.

"I'm sorry."

"_Don't _say that to me! I wanna know what's wrong with me, not hear what you say to everyone we meet who you can't – " _save. _Her eyes widened and she coughed again, less violently this time but still bringing up blood. Again, he said nothing and simply wiped it away. "Please," she pleaded. "Tell me what's going on."

"Calm down, you'll make yourself worse," he signed resignedly, bowing his head and looking more lost and vulnerable than she'd ever seen him. Finally, he took a deep breath, swallowed and began.

"This is my fault."

"_What's _your fault? What the hell is goin' on?"

He couldn't look at her. "I tried everything, Rose." Voice breaking, he continued. "Don't think I didn't try."

She took his hand urgently, willing him to look at her. "You have to tell me what's wrong! Why am I –?" Gesturing uselessly at the bloodstained bed, she was unable to complete her sentence, repulsed and terrified at the thought of what was happening. He took the cover away swiftly and shoved it out of sight, leaving just the undersheet over her tired and bruised body.

"Poison." One word was all he could manage. Luckily, one word was enough.

"_Poison_? But I thought that gas just knocked you out!"

Gently, he pulled the covers of the bed back and took out her arm, rolling up the sleeve to past her elbow. "Yvonne must have injected you with something after she knocked you out," he said bitterly, fingers resting lightly around a large bruise and tear in her skin.

She winced. "OK…then just antidote it or whatever, yeah? There's gotta be somethin'."

"I don't know what it is," he said urgently, willing her to understand, looking her in the eye as his fingers moved down her arm and gripped at her wrist. "She must have made it herself, Rose, the TARDIS can't even identify it…"

"B-but…people survive being poisoned all the time! I'm not – "

"I'm so, so sorry." His voice took on a desperate note, eyes wild and staring. "I've tried everything! Antibiotics and enzymes and analysing the poison, even flipping penicillin but there's nothing…" his eyes shut, lashes contrasting darkly against his pale skin. "I don't know what to do."

Rose shook her head, confusion completely overwhelming her. "But you're…you're you! You always know what to do! There's always some…some miracle cure or some way out. There has to be!"

Ragged through her fear, her breathing became harsher as the poison's hold over her increased. She was suddenly acutely aware of every single pain in her body, from the stabbing feeling in her left lung to her throbbing head and the feeling of something unnatural, something burning, creeping through her veins…

"What's it gonna do to me?" she whispered, pleading in her eyes, needing to be told that everything would be OK. Surely he could _do _something? There was always something…

He looked right through her, shaking his head slowly.

"Say it! If I'm about to…the least you can do is_ tell _me!"

Voice completely flat and monotone, he confirmed what she'd feared. "It's going to kill you, Rose."

Face screwed up in incredulity, she shook her own head as violently as she could manage. "We've…I've seen…"

"I know," he said softly, fingers now prising her balled fist open and absently beginning to trace the lines across her palm. "When you've faced everything we have in the past two years, you begin to feel invincible."

She closed her eyes for a long while and the Doctor began to worry until he saw the lids scrunch together and tears squeeze out, flooding through her eyelashes. The full, inescapable extent of what was happening had finally hit her.

Blindly, her fingers found a loose thread in the undersheet and she wrapped it tightly around her middle finger, cutting off the circulation slightly. She closed her hand tight around it, as though trying to hold onto something, anything, she could. She brought her fist to her mouth, pressing it to the base of her thumb in an attempt to stop her verbalised tears escaping. Watching her like this was near enough ripping him apart. Unable to maintain the recent lack of contact, he took her hand and unwound it, opening it flat and pressing his own hand directly to it in the way children do when trying to see who has the longest fingers. The thread dropped. Shifting his hand very slightly to the left, he used his fingers to push through hers and folded them over the back of her hand.

This simple gesture made a sob rack through her body and her eyelids squeezed tighter as she pulled her own fingers down to mirror his in a painful, desperate grip. When she opened her eyes, the tears swimming in them weren't enough to mask her utterly lost, helpless expression.

She brought their joined hands to her lips and pressed them together. It wasn't a kiss, as such, more that she needed to feel their mingled pulses – intensified by her tight grip making his veins throb – reverberate through her, an affirmation of life.

"You don't have to put on a brave face for me," he said gently. "I won't think badly of you for being afraid."

He saw her swallow as she moved their hands away from her mouth a little. Her breath, jagged and uneven as it was, tickled across his skin. "I'm not." Pupils wide and glaring and she couldn't look him in the eye.

"Rose…"

"Alright, I'm terrified, OK?" she snapped unintentionally, everything getting to her and fear blocking the passageway to her lungs with more ferocity than any poison could ever manage.

"Sorry…" she sighed. "I didn't mean to…snap or anything', it's jus' that…"

"You're scared. I know." There was a look in his eyes she only ever remembered seeing once before. They had been stuck on Kroptor, the planet orbiting the black hole – her body temperature dropped momentarily, still shivering to think about it – and he'd told her that he'd trapped her there before pulling her in for a hug. 'Hug' didn't do it justice: never before had she been held so close or even seen such emotion in his eyes. As though someone had pulled shields down from behind his lashes, she had been able to see – and could see now – fear, regret, resignation and something warm and comforting fighting its way up from where it had long ago been buried.

"I feel like I wanna say stuff but I don't know _what…_it's hard to sort it out in my head. You've done this…how many times did you say?" she laughed lightly, holding her breath briefly to prevent it turning into another cough. "Maybe you could gimme a hand here. I dunno what to say." Though most of the speech was in jest, the last line had a sort of torn, pleading air to it, knowing as she did that she was running out of time and not being able to tell what mattered and what needed to be said.

"What are you scared of?"

"What is this, psychotherapy?" she smiled again but it faded quickly and something clouded over her bloodshot eyes. "You really wanna know?"

A slight inclination of his head acted as an answer. He kept it bowed.

"That…after all this, and everything we've done and everythin' we've saved…that there's nothin' there. There was no point to it. I almost…Toby. The Beast that possessed him…" she whispered, unable to continue. _The valiant child who will die in battle, so very soon…_it rang constantly through her brain like a bell tolling for death.

Raising his eyes to meet hers, he looked directly at her encouragingly. Watching him, she took a breath and ploughed on.

"I almost wished it was the devil, 'cause then that means there's a God…" she whispered, rushing over her words, colour bruising her cheeks while she simultaneously turned her head away and flicked her eyes to the ceiling, abashed. "That's silly, I know."

Silence filled the air and Rose waited for a reaction, feeling anticipation build in her stomach. It was funny, she thought, how she could be worried about little things like this (such as what the Doctor thought of her) when she was about to be faced with the ultimate unknown. However, a warming smile passed across his face, showing her silently that he didn't think it was silly at all. Though he knew wiping away her tears was a completely fruitless gesture, it made him feel better and he did it all the same, leaning lightly on the bed.

"An'…what about my mum? What if she can't cope with losin' all of us? She even started to like you, Doctor." But this time there was no jest behind her words. "Mickey, an' my dad, and me, _and _you…what's she gonna do?" Another tear leaked out, floodgates opening one by one with her words. "Will – will you tell her for me?"

A silent nod of consent, although he knew he'd never be able to face Jackie and tell her he'd let her only child die.

"I'm scared that you're gonna blame yourself for this."

Although he was a little shocked, he said nothing; Rose needed to get all of this out. Besides, what else was there to say? He always would blame himself, no matter what she said.

"This doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would…" Her voice had a faraway quality to it and there was a drifting look in her eyes. Scared he was losing her, he intensified his grip on her hand.

"No?"

"Nah. I guess…I sorta thought it'd be like being ripped apart or something…soul out of your body and all that."

"You're not quite there," he reassured her quietly, the 'yet' hanging ominously in the air between them. "And…well, wonders of modern medicine. You have a lot to thank old Freddie Serturner for."

Brushing past the history-of-medical-science reference with a light smile, she continued. "You know what else?"

He shook his head, slightly bemused, trying to ignore the way her skin had gone so pale he could see every single vein running through her face.

"I'm absolutely terrified that I'm never gonna see you again." And, after a slight pause:"Can ya tell me that I will?"

Silence. She'd known it was a stupid question the moment she said it: even he didn't know what came after this, but she'd needed reassurance.

"If there is anythin', Doctor, if I can...I'll wait for you there."

His only response was to mutely place his other hand over their joined ones. He'd never been any good at goodbyes.


	4. Three Words And Goodnight Indeed

**Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow **–

**Part Four: Three Words, And Goodnight Indeed**

A/N: Part four of five. Thanks so much for all the lovely reviews, guys! I'm sorry for making you cry though. Title is again from Romeo and Juliet, which _I do not own_, just like I don't own Doctor Who.

Unfortunately.

--

Gaze on the ceiling, she tried to keep her voice even as she spoke. "I never thought I'd die young. Not even when I started travelling with you and had to run for my life at least twice a week…I always thought it was something that'd never happen. Long way off, y'know? Not even worth thinkin' about."

"I used to think that." His lips were pursed, verging on curling. Most people would mistake the expression for sulking, disgust or even boredom, but she knew better: this face was all sadness and reminiscing.

"Yeah?" she tilted her face towards him, surprised by this voluntary divulge of information.

"Yeah. Even up until my eighth incarnation. I felt like I had all the time in the world, but then…" a long pause in which he ran a hand tiredly through his mop of hair, expression darkening as the allusion to the Time War lay untouched. "…and now? I've never felt so old." There was something about watching a person as young and full of life as Rose wither and fade before your eyes that made you feel decidedly ancient, world-weary and unworthy of life. The Doctor wasn't the only thing getting old; death was too, and he'd seen it far too many times.

He fell silent and she reached a hand out to tilt his chin, forcing him to look at her and he flinched at the touch of her cold hands. "Please don't leave me."

A sad smile crossed his face while he removed her hand and placed it back under the cover in an effort to keep her warm, keep her _alive_. "I thought I was supposed to be the one asking youthat."

"Promise me," she whispered, the anxious, rushing feeling inside her forbidding her from hesitating over this. "I'm scared to die by myself."

How _could_ he say anything but "yes"?

--

Her mouth dropped open a little and her face screwed up in concentration as her mind turned to Yvonne. "I don't…really understand what I did."

"Hmm?" Eyebrows raised, inviting her to go on.

"I mean, why she – why _poison _me? Why not just leave me there if I've done somethin' wrong? Or even jus'…" Thoughts buzzed randomly through her brain, making her head pound. "It – it just seems a bit pointless. I dunno what she thought she was stopping."

"You were _– are – _a threat, a danger, a… " He puffed air out between his almost-closed lips, trying to find the words. "A risk factor. You know too much."

"Oh." _Who would I have told? Who would have believed me, anyway?_

He let out a heavy sigh, swallowed his anger and pulled on his ear thoughtfully. "That's exactly what it was. Completely and utterly pointless." It took a lot to keep his voice steady and calm and even more to not drop Rose's hand there and then and hunt Yvonne down personally. Yvonne, any remaining Cybermen, the Daleks, Torchwood employees…anyone. They all caused this. However, he knew he couldn't justify ripping them limb from limb, as he was quite tempted to do, knowing as he did that it was his fault for ever getting her involved with Torchwood in the first place. For handing her over to Yvonne, for travelling with her, for even asking her along all those months ago.

"Yeah?"

"A few secrets traded for sixty years or more?" By human standards, she hadn't lived. She didn't reach her twenty-first birthday, she never would get married nor have children. She never left home or completed her A-Levels or progressed in her job. All these little events, milestones in the human calendar, eluded her and always would – because of him. "It's not fair, Rose. Doesn't matter what you know or what you could have said. None of it's worth your life."

Something like warmth spread through her arctic body and she smiled.

Minutes passed, some crawling by and making it feel as though Rose was hanging on by a thread and others racing around the clock, drawing the inevitable nearer and nearer. They sat together, mostly in companionable silence, as Rose became steadily weaker. By the time an hour had gone, she could no longer see things clearly – everything had taken on a permanently misty edge and the Doctor swam in and out of view and she swam in and out of consciousness. Eventually, words that had been whirling around her mind sprang from her now blue lips without much of a second thought, rather surprising her as she had been considering them for two years. Death did strange things to people.

"Doctor, I –"

For the first time, he locked eyes with her sharply, voluntarily, as if he was able to read her mind. "I know. You don't have to say it."

Taking a deep breath which almost caused another coughing fit, she pressed the matter. "But what if I want to say it?" She would never have another chance. Her fingers were growing colder even encased within his and her pupils had long since ceased to react to any form of light. She could feel her rib cage tightening as she spoke, the creeping, burning feeling accelerating into a raging fire sweeping through her blood, controlling her entire body and holding it in an iron grip.

"I don't suppose there's much I can say to stop you." He wasn't sure he_ wanted_ to stop her and definitely would never have tried if it hadn't been for one thing. Her eyes alone, pleading but full of something else – red and watering, shadows below them deepening by the second as the poison took hold – were a constant reminder of what he stood to loose, a loss that would be made so much more painful by three little, monosyllabic words.

That didn't stop him wanting to hear it, though.

"I love you," she sighed simply, as though they weren't words that she'd been waiting to say ever since the day that she'd met him, words that surpassed all time and meaning. As though it was the most straightforward and obvious thing in the world, that it was perfectly natural for a nineteen year old girl to fall in love with a nine hundred year old alien.

Though the Doctor's face didn't change – this was no big revelation; they had always known – he placed an arm flat across her pillow and brought his head down to rest on it. His mass of hair tickled her ear and Rose drew back slightly, startled and alarmed by this display of weakness. A battle raged inside him, love and envy billowing through and overwhelming him. Unlike him, she could love so easily, gave her heart to him so freely…and she wasn't going to be the one left behind to deal with the fallout. Unseen to Rose, he closed his eyes bitterly against his arm.

"Have I gone and left you speechless? Now that's an achievement and a half." Ordinarily her eyes would have sparkled cheekily along with a comment like that, but today they were dull and matte, clouding over. Besides, it was not so much an attempt at humour as an attempt to cover up her shock at his reaction.

"I – I can't…" _deal with loving you when you're about to die. Cope with anyone else leaving. Tell you how much that means to me._

"If you don't love me, that's alright." Somehow it was. It wasn't as though she could do anything about it now. "I jus' had to say it." Though she felt a weight lift off her at having finally told him, she began to worry that she'd messed things up; that he wouldn't want to stay anymore and she'd have to face this alone.

"_Love_." The word came after a beat, oddly muffled despite the fact that he was so close to her ear and accompanied by a humourless laugh. She let out a shaky breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "You humans don't have a word that even begins to cover it. You're – "

"Stupid apes?"

"I was going to say _completely_, ridiculouslyuseless in a crisis, but that would do quite nicely." She laughed and for a moment he felt as though everything would be fine just as long as he could keep her smiling.

He raised his head and sat back, suddenly completely sincere. "I _more _than love you, Rose. _I love you_ doesn't do it justice. You've got no idea how much you…everything that you've done for me. It's above and beyond what I'd expect of anyone."

"Look at that face. Who could say no to you?" she teased, reaching up to pinch his cheeks. It took a conscious effort on his part to ignore how deathly pale her own had become.

"You stayed with me through a regeneration," he levelled. "Not many people have ever done that. Not only did you stay but you've treated me exactly the same. You ripped apart my ship and came back to save me, even though I'd sent you home to be safe, even though it opened up a hundred and one ways for you to die. I…"

"Can't you say it, though, please? Just this one time." If he felt it, too, there was no way she was going to let him get away with not saying so. Even though he was the Doctor, mysterious and (for the most part) untouchable, she knew he still had emotions hidden in there somewhere. Perhaps the words weren't adequate for him, but she needed to hear them.

"I don't have the words."

"No, _humans _don't have the words."

He muttered something in Gallifreyan before smiling at her hollowly. "There."

She laughed, pretending it didn't hurt, and he in turn pretended she hadn't winced. "You know I didn't understand that. C'mon, just once. For these silly stupid human cloth ears of mine."

"I love you, Rose Tyler." The words almost ripped from him, new to these lips, long untested waters even for his memories. Expecting them to sound rusty, unused, he was slightly shocked at the force with which he managed to utter them.

Instead of widening Rose's smile, as she expected it would have, this only made her infinitely sad. Perhaps for what she'd now never have, perhaps for what they'd missed, a tear rolled sideways down her face from the corner of her eye, leaving a tingling, burning sensation in its wake.

"It's funny," she muttered quietly, swiping it embarrassedly away.

"What's funny?" he asked, clearly finding the situation less than humorous.

"Everything we've been through…it all comes down to this. And it took all this just to get you to admit it! And d'you know what?" her voice broke as tears poured down her cheeks, making her next words seem futile. "It's not so scary. Just promise you're gonna be here, yeah?"

As much as he hated watching this, he couldn't have left her now for the world.


	5. I Will Lie With Thee Tonight

**Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow **–

**Part Five: I Will Lie With Thee Tonight**

A/N: Final part! Yay, I actually did it before Army of Ghosts aired :D Thank you so much for all your reviews; you've all been lovely!

Enjoy, and have fun (or not...) watching Army of Ghosts tonight!

Disclaimer: As ever, I own nothing!

--

"The next girl…" Rose ventured, but the Doctor cut across her.

"Don't talk about that."

"No, I want to. You can…you can fall madly in love with her and have houses and carpets and doors, I won't mind," she insisted as he shook his head. "Just…I know that I've only been around for the tiniest little part of your life, but you completely turned mine around, and if it was you lying here now, I could never, ever forget you, not even if I got old and mad. I jus' wanna know that you'll remember me, even if it is only for a little while. I don't want to be forgotten," she pleaded quietly. Like all humans, she clung to her one way to live on after facing the inevitable – memories.

_I could never forget you. _"I remember every single person I've ever travelled with, Rose. I couldn't forget you – or any of them – if I tried."

It wasn't the answer she was looking for, but it was enough.

--

Everytime her eyes fluttered shut the Doctor felt his hearts jolt and he held his breath, desperately listening for any sign of hers. This happened far too often and became a regular occurrence, so much so that whenever she slipped into unconsciousness he wanted to shake her awake again, reassure himself that she was still hanging on. At first he'd counted – three, four, _five _times out cold in an hour – but after a while numbers escaped him and he simply sat, numb and pensive, waiting for her to wake again.

"Is there anything you want?" he asked, as her eyelids parted weakly.

"Nothin' that ain't here already," she told him blearily before half-laughing at her own sentimentality. "But…" she looked around her at the clinically white walls. "I don't really wanna die in a hospital room. Not if I've got a choice anyway. Could I…could you show me the stars one more time be-before…?" she bit her lip and looked away, unable to go on. Embarrassed at her request and scared to admit she was dying as though saying it out loud would make it happen faster, she hoped she'd said enough.

He laughed slightly, a little puff of air blown out through his nose accompanied by a smile. "You never cease to amaze me, Rose Tyler. Not even now."

With that, he stood up and leant over the bed, pushing one arm under her knees and another behind her neck before lifting her completely off it. Slightly startled and worried by how light she was, as though she was literally wasting away, he carried her across the room to the door, kicking it open a little too forcefully and making her smile as he winced.

"Ooooh!"

"That'll teach you to kick doors," she reprimanded, burying her face in his shoulder with a smile.

--

Woman Wept being the (appropriately) chosen destination, the Doctor landed the TARDIS while keeping one eye trained on Rose, who sat huddled up on the chair by the console with a blanket draped over her knees. They had last been here together in his Ninth incarnation and she had marvelled at the light of two moons shimmering through the ice-solid waves they'd wandered beneath, hand in hand. Hoping that the scenery would cheer her instead of making her more melancholy, he picked her up again and carried her out of the doors.

"I coulda walked, y'know," she mumbled, arms around his neck.

"The hell you could," he retorted as he lay her down on the silvery sand, backing up a little to lean against the TARDIS himself. She eyed him, half-frowning, half-smiling. "What?"

"I'm not contagious. Least I don't think so…"

The corners of his mouth twisted up and he took his massive coat off, spreading it across the ground for them both to sit on. She shuffled across to it, still lying and bringing a large quantity of sand with her, and he sat crossed-legged looking up at the sky.

"C'mon then. Name some stars."

He laughed. "Where to start?"

Looking up the sky, she raised her arm perpendicular to her body and scanned the stars. "That one," she said finally, settling on the brightest in a line of three right above her head. Her arm tired quickly and she dropped it back to her side as soon as he'd seen her chosen star.

"Ahh. You've chosen a good one." He grinned down at her, delighted, making that funny little 'heee' noise she'd come to recognise as a pleased laugh. "Good job I didn't take you to Australia or right about now you'd be asking me to name the 'saucepan-shaped one'."

Rose snorted. "What is it then? You're not telling me you don't know!" she teased, reaching over to prod him.

"Orion's belt," he exclaimed excitedly, almost bouncing on his legs. "Ooooh, I love this one. Probably the best known constellation in your sky; contains all the best nebulas too. There's one shaped like a horse's head…" he shook his own in slight disbelief. "Never get tired of looking at that one." When he realised Rose was laughing at him, he hurriedly returned to Orion's belt. "Can you see it? He's a hunter. Standing next to the river Eridanus – that's the constellation bordering Orion – and him and his dogs are giving poor old Taurus the bull a right beating."

Rose raised her eyebrows incredulously, apparently unable to decide whether the Doctor or the astronomers were more crazy. "Dogs?"

"Canis Major and Minor," he said, tracing their shapes with a finger, but all Rose could discern was a few bright stars twinkling down at her. With a sigh, he leant his head in her direction, allowing himself to see the stars from her perspective and lifted her arm to point at the right section of the sky. "_There._"

"Where?"

He tutted, shaking his head in mock despair. "Hopeless! Right there. The three stars you saw first are his belt – hence the name, although sometimes they're called As Tres Marias. After the three Marys of the New Testament, that is. Bit religious, if you ask me, and a bit funny to name a warrior's belt after three holy women, but whatever floats your boat I suppose. Go back to the belt, and look up a bit…that's his shoulder. Go down again and you'll see his sword hanging off his belt." His companion looked as bemused as ever. "No?"

She shook her head, shivering a little as the gentle breeze seemed to rip right through her. It all just looked like a few bright spots in the sky; it was quite beyond her how they made the shape of a man and his dogs, let alone a sword and a bull. Besides, though she wouldn't admit it, thanks to Yvonne's poison she could barely see _him _clearly enough to discern his facial expression, let alone burning clouds of gas thousands of light-years away. "Nope." Then, something occurring to her, she asked, "where's his head?" and the Doctor exploded into laughter.

"Bit of a sad story, really," he mused after a moment's silence. The expression on Rose's face clearly indicated that she was completely lost so he elaborated, gesturing madly with his hands and eyebrows while he told the tale. "The Greeks had a story, one that explained why Orion was in the sky. Answer for everything, that lot," he added mutinously and Rose's blue lips twitched into a smile. "Artemis – goddess of the moon – fell so madly in love with him that she stopped lighting up the sky at night. Through the usual twists and complications and idiotic actions that make up Greek tragedies, she was tricked into shooting an arrow at a 'spot' in the waves."

"Lemme guess, it turned out to be Orion?" she put in.

"Got it in one, hit the nail on the head…all the usual metaphors. Later, after she found out what she'd done, she placed his body in the stars. The Greeks believed that the moon always looks so sad at night because of her grief."

Rose looked sadly up at the two moons of Woman Wept. "Can you imagine that?" she asked quietly, gasping at a sudden pain between her ribs. "Killing someone you love?"

"It's bad enough watching them die," he said softly and she knew the matter was closed.

--

Unable to sit still for long, the Doctor was soon up and walking about agitatedly, hands in his pockets. "I should never have taken you with me."

She tilted her head back into the sand to look at him. "Don't say that. I chose to come."

"I offered. I asked. Twice!" He seemed almost shocked at himself and a hand flew out of his pocket, two fingers held up to illustrate his point. "I never ask twice! Don't normally even ask, come to think of it."

"Was I that special?" she grinned, tongue poking between her teeth before it was hastily retracted and she became serious once more. Cursing himself, he could do nothing but watch in horror as a spasm took over her body, shaking her from head to foot for a full minute.

When it was over, and he was kneeling at her head, busying himself with lightly pushing her hair off her pale and shaking face, pretending it was useful, she spoke again. Though the sound of her voice comforted both of them – it acted as a reassurance that she was still there, still with him enough to talk and hold a conversation – it was weak, diminished, and did little to help them now. "All this, travelling round the universe in a big blue box, it might be old hat to you but to me? I've lived more in these past two years than I ever would have done in all my life if you'd left me at home – in _five _lifetimes."

"If I'd left you at home, you would have lived past twenty. You wouldn't be dying right now if I'd just let you _go_." All of her hair was now out of her face but he couldn't bring himself to take his hand away. He kept it resting lightly over her forehead, thumb occasionally, involuntarily, moving across her skin.

"You don't know that. I could've been hit by a bus or anything. Suffocated by a jumper. Died of complete and utter boredom. Spent the rest of my life wondering who you are and about this life of yours…'cause I never would have forgotten you, you know. And I'd so much rather it ended like this."

"Scared? After running for your life? After I failed you?"

Whatever he said, whenever she died, she knew she'd always be scared. This didn't make much difference, and she couldn't think of a single way she'd rather go out than lying under the stars on a beautiful planet with the Doctor's fingers lingering over her skin. "After an adventure, after the best two years ever imaginable, with you. You've shown me so much…"

"Too much."

"My _dad_…" her voice quivered. "Even though you knew it was a bad idea, even though I completely betrayed your trust, you still took me there. You still forgave me afterwards."

He was silent. She reached a hand up, behind her, to his face.

"I got to see my daddy," she said, as if that settled things. "How many people are ever that lucky? You took me to see him and you gave us both the most wonderful thing. _Time_."

He pushed her hand away bitterly and began to pace again. "It's my fault. I was supposed to protect you…I promised I'd look after you."

What she said next made him stop in his tracks and look down at her, astonished and forlorn, knowing her words would echo through his mind for a long time to come.

"He can do that now."

--

"S'pose at least I can say it was interesting…" she muttered, quite out of things to say.

"Death doesn't have to be interesting. Your death doesn't _deserve _to be interesting. You should've died when you were – eighty, and old, in your sleep wearing a nasty old night-gown and one of those hideous hairnets. Not like this."

"Oh, thanks, condemning me to eternal boredom and bad hair, are you?"

"Rose…"

"Don't. Please." She reached a hand up to his face and he once again removed it, this time lacing his fingers through hers before allowing her to drop it. "Without you I'd never have had a clue. It's been…fantastic."

The hand didn't move, but his mouth did. However, she stopped him before he could insist, once again, that he'd been wrong to ever take her with him.

"Now ain't the best time to tell me you're having second thoughts about dragging me across the universe with you, Doctor."

"I don't regret a single second of it, Rose, but if I could make it so I'd never asked you and this'd never happen, I would." It wasn't that he didn't care. It was that he cared too much, far too much to lose her.

"Nice to know. I wouldn't."

"You wouldn't? If you could go back, change it all?" He looked to her curiously, settling lightly on his coat again, terrified that the next silence wouldn't be interrupted – that she'd die and he wouldn't be there to hold her hand.

"Says the Time Lord! … But no. Not a single second of it. 'Course I wish I was getting longer, but only if it was this kinda life. I wouldn't trade any of it in for another fifty years of being a shop-girl."

Remotely proud of her adventurous spirit, the thought that her life – a life that could have been so full, could have been lived so much more – was ending seemed bitterer than ever. "I wish there was something I could _do_," he gestured violently, feeling helpless. "You've got no idea what it's like to be sitting here just watching you…" a grimace passed over his face as his tone became almost disgusted, "_die_ and not be able to _help_."

"It's OK. Seriously," she added when he looked doubtful. Supposing he, having lived so long, probably feared death even more than she did, she carried on and let all her thoughts spill out. "'Cause I've seen everythin'…I've sped through galaxies people of my time don't even know exist, fought gas-mask zombies and human trampolines and God knows what else." She grinned briefly, tears still coursing down her cheeks. "I've danced inside a police box. Dunno how many people can say that…"

He couldn't return the expression. Instead, he put one shaking hand over his face and rested the other lightly on her neck, as if reassuring himself she was still there, heart still beating, still hanging on. "I've spent two years with _you_…I can't ask for anything else."

--

"Would you – lie with me?" He met her eyes, his own almost as pleading as hers. "Please?"

He didn't need any more encouragement than that. Wordlessly, he stretched his legs out and shifted sideways towards her. He lay on his back, their arms separating their bodies with their hands still joined at the end. Rose began to shift but the Doctor, sensing what she was about to do, warned her not to turn.

"Won't make much difference now, will it?" she smiled sadly and he allowed her to curl into him, even guiding her slightly with his free hand.

Slowly, she moved until she was completely on her side and he let go of her hand so that she wouldn't have to lie on her own arm. He placed his arm under the curve of her neck instead and brought his hand back to rest in her hair, which he brushed away lightly, letting his fingers glide gently over her skin even after he was done. They traced a path down to her bare arm, now covered in delicate bruises as blood pooled together in shadows beneath the skin. He could feel her shaking slightly, unwilling, against him and reflected that it was a horrible way for a life to end. Not only so soon, but so drawn-out…especially for someone who had lived the last two years in the way that Rose had. It was such an anti-climax. He suddenly realised that she hadn't made a single complaint in the past three hours and marvelled at her courage and resolve.

She brought her knees up to herself, one of them pushing slightly forwards and overlapping his leg, tilting her head to rest against his neck and shoulder. He leant his own against hers, holding onto the feel of her breath playing shallow and uneven across his skin, willing it to be regular and deep once more. She reached for his other hand and he took hers without hesitation once again, gripping just as tight as before and bringing their linked hands to rest somewhere near his double-heartbeat.

Both of his hearts pulsed strongly and he briefly thought how unfair it was that all they could do was get faster while hers faded into oblivion. If he could keep her near that heartbeat, maybe it would be enough for the both of them…

As if reading his thoughts and feeling, like him, that perhaps his two heartbeats could somehow compensate for the one she was fast losing, Rose instinctively shifted her hand a few centimetres up his body and felt the steady thumps echo through her.

"What's that one, then?" she whispered weakly, eyes screwed shut in pain against his shoulder.

He looked down at her, confused, though he realised she was talking about stars again. "Which one?"

"Any one."

Finally, he realised she just wanted him to talk. Keeping his eyes on her and without as much as looking at the sky, he began to describe the constellation of Andromeda (named after the princess, the 'ruler of men'…he thought it rather appropriate) and, bordering it, Cassiopeia, though neither were at all visible from where they lay. "The stars in that one make the shape of a queen sitting on a chair," he told her, pulling on his ear.

A soft mumble came from somewhere near his shoulder. "Bet it looks nothing like it."

He laughed, though he realised she'd never see it herself now. "No. No, it doesn't. More of a wiggle really…" he conceded fairly.

He'd known as soon as he couldn't ID the poison that there was no hope for her but he'd frantically tried everything else in his power anyway. He knew now, as her breathing became more ragged, that the end was near and he tightened his hold over her because of it. And he knew, finally, as the light breeze across his skin ceased that it was all over, but he couldn't let her go. He wasn't ready.


End file.
